A Conservative Blogger Waved A Gun At Black Lives Matter Protesters In Portland

A Black Lives Matter protest in memory of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in downtown Portland, Ore. erupted in chaos after a man pulled a handgun on the crowd Thursday night. The man, 36-year-old conservative blogger Michael Strickland, was videotaping the event and got into an argument with a number of protestors.

Freelance reporters and videographers are nothing new at protests, and they’re basically a minor annoyance to those in attendance. But this situation was different as members of the Portland protest became alarmed as Strickland kept gesturing to his waistband as he was recording the crowd. He revealed he was carrying a Glock 27 handgun and yelling at protestors to “back off!” Several protestors quickly hid behind by cars for protection. Strickland said he pulled out his gun because he felt he was outnumbered and feared for his life.

Several protestors said they approached Strickland calmly and asked him to leave, but Strickland was already reaching for his weapon before anyone said anything. Strickland is a conservative blogger, who runs the YouTube channel Laughing at Liberals and is a Donald Trump supporter. As this was occurring, there were no police officers present in the area, even though there were a number at the protest at Multnomah County Justice Center.

I just witnessed This man in the middle pull a gun on the crowd. Everyone ran screaming. Police no where in sight pic.twitter.com/L86zcLob5F

As the situation progressed, a SWAT team arrived on the scene and subdued the situation and arrested Strickland. Portland Police Chief Michael Marshman said in a note to his fellow officers emotions will be high the next few days, but it is important to stick together as a community:

“While these shootings occurred thousands of miles from Portland, we live in an age of constant media and social media dialogue that raises emotions in our own community. Those emotions are a reality that we need to acknowledge and then continue to talk to people about what we are doing here in our community.”

The recent wave of gun violence is taking its toll and tensions are high not just in Baton Rouge, Minnesota and Dallas, but throughout the country.

Tough to prove disparity of force when no one has done anything to you. People approaching you isn’t a crime. He was afraid for his life because he’s afraid of black folks. If you fear them, don’t go to a rally where they might be. This guy is a fucking asshole and not a responsible gun owner. Good news is that the felony they’ll charge him with will take away his right to own a weapon.

If we’re going to start demanding accuracy here, then how about we start with the first sentence in this thread? Some BLM protestors, not THE BLM protestors. Some people are cunts, and they exist in all demographics. Yes, looting and threatening are bad, but so is turning up to a rally with a gun. This could have ended horrifically.

If they are pouring alcohol on your news Van, you put down the camera and start knocking mother fuckers out. Quit being pussies and earn your respect out there. You knock two out, take off your shirt and yell “Who else wants to fuck with Hollywood Cole!”

So here’s the news story: [www.wfaa.com]
Nowhere in that article does it mention BLM protestors, and it says SOME were BELIEVED to be stealing from inside the convenience store. Standard news article about suspected theft of of a store by randos being pushed into an area by police.
When it involves black folk, they love to use the word “looting” as if the entire store is being emptied out.

Either way this has no relevance to this story, other than serving as a red herring to excuse a wrong.

He’s an outspoken Trump supporter on his youtube channel and has achieved some notoriety on the basis of this, so it is arguably relevant. Other news outlets have referred to him as a “conservative blogger,” which is maybe more fair. Either way, you’d probably be upset.

“A gun owner used his weapon to stop what he perceived to be a threat with zero injury or death” is a more accurate headline here. Stop promoting fear, anger and hatred with biased headlines and articles. That’s how Dallas happens.

Do we know he supported Obama and still supports Obama? Also, Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous. I don’t find Obama’s ideas anything that should cause violence, unless, of course, you are a scared white person.

And really the more I see of headlines like this I imagine they are similar to how white power websites stir up hatred from those that go there. Biased propaganda disguised as journalism is very dangerous. I hear from many that this isn’t a news site, its an entertainment site. Well, one of the categories on the top of my screen says News….and they seem to have a lot of non-entertainment articles. Saying you’re not something because you don’t want to be held to a higher standard doesn’t make it fact. The question is what kind of news site do you want to be? As-is, the presentation of news stories is comically biased and borderline dangerous. Riling up a populace to drive clicks is rather shameless. These topics could be rationally presented and even debated if any time was taken in constructing the articles. Instead we get, “Trump did this” and “The NRA said this”. Often times ignoring common sense and the “other” sides reasoning. Just because people disagree does not make one side ignorant. I’m not sure how Uproxx has linked up with Yahoo, for example, but now that their exposure has grown so should their criticism. Having entertainment writers with a clear agenda covering politics and news is a bad idea. Hold yourselves to a higher standard.

This is the same bullshit criticism that was applied by conservatives to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. That because he was covering news stories, he should be held to journalistic standards. Of course Jon Stewart’s reply was that he is a fucking COMEDIAN, on a comedy show, on a comedy network, where his show at one point ran adjacent to another show about puppets making prank phone calls. So if you think he’s a journalist or trying to be one, then you’re a moron. So ditto with you guys and Uproxx. It’s a pop culture entertainment website, not the New York Times. If you don’t like the viewpoint they have, go jerk off over at Drudge Report where you’ll be fed what you want to hear.

By coming and clicking on the link (and commenting) you justify their presence. As a site run as a business for clicks you pretty much fit right into the model.
Boycotting the website could be one response – sort of what the BDS movement tries to do with businesses in the occupied territories. In other words, just leave, then they won’t count your precious clicks.

Everyone has bias, even your local pundit/blogger (who will most likely sell out as soon a larger media organization buys it).
You want “rational debate”? Go to school. Read academic peer-reviewed journals. Christ, read the Financial Times, where at least they have to be truthful some of the time for their audience of investors and business people. (don’t buy them, go to a library and read them there, or steal them)

I know its a scary world out there and you don’t know where do get all the information you need. Here’s a hint: it’s not here. It’s not in a lot of places. To get at the truth you have to hunt, and be skeptical at all times. I am ok with media that’s biased, as long as they tell me where they’re coming from. Then I can correct for their bias (or what I see as their bias).

tl;dr: Uproxx bills itself as “news and culture for the digital generation”. That’s fancy-talk for young people on their phones. So they’re going to post what young people believe is important to get at their sweet advertising clicks. Consume accordingly (and skeptically).

The protesters had no right to tell him to leave but he should have just left and no one would have known really that he was Armed 🔫 Once he got some video of the crazy people he should have left anyway 🎥 Now he has a Court date and for what 😧